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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well documented, clear discription of a deadly reality., 14 Jan 1998
By A Customer
When a topic as potentially sensationalistic as "Deadly Disease Being Spread to US Population with Covert US Government Cooperation" needs to be dealt with seriously, it takes responsible journalists to keep hysteria from distorting the facts. Rampton and Stauber have succeeded where others would have failed. The topic of the book is how the meat industry, their public relations firms and the governments of the USA and Britian worked together to attempt to conceal important information about a newly discovered disease that was abroad in the human food system. The truly frightening truth is that Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE, or Mad Cow Disease) is a real thing. It is one disease in a class known as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy that have, until recently, been little researched and little understood. This book does not describe an episode of "The X-Files." People have died from it and are continuing to die from it. The authors documented the entire process of a growing crisis that has potentially world-shattering implications to millions of Americans. Pulling together original source material from obscure (and perhaps at time even hostile) sources they describe how the events unfolded and reason the events unfolded as they did. An important note is that this book is not, and does not pretend to be, a scientific treatment of BSE, TSE's or any other topic. Its approach is more realistic. The authors lay out the occurances as they transpired, uncovering innumerable bits of information that were never before collected together or presented to the general public. The book details the scientific minutae only to the degree it is relevant and stops short of either lecturing or preaching. Explaining who the players have been, their position the entire affair (including the financial risks and implications to the meat industry, the pharmacutical industry and the cosmetic industry) and where they are at the time of printing is a real life detective story whose final chapter has not been written. The only significant frustration I had with the book was the "99%" nature of some of the time oriented information. The footnotes were excellent in identifying th original sources, yet were not always clear as to if the dates were referenced were to indicate when information was released or when the actual experiment / event / discovery occurred. In fairness, I cannot level this criticism with much force, as my scrutiny of the footnotes comes from my intent to develop a fully documented timeline and collection of original source material. That they failed to do my chosen job while undertaking their own agenda can hardly be a cause for blame. As the facts concerning BSE and TSE's continue to unfold it becomes clear that the cricis is far from over. There are still more revelations to come. As more court cases come up based on the Food Disparagement / Veggie Liable Laws, the war rages on. This book give a powerful reference to help understand new events as they unfold over the next several years. Caution in reading this book may be advised, though. The material can be sufficiently frightening in its implications, you may feel the need to make new choices in lfe.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Meat Industry vs Medicine - A violation of public trust, 2 Jan 1998
By A Customer
As if multiple resistant salmonella, arteriosclerosis and hormones were not enough the meat and dairy industry is now literally beseiged by a new plague and has responded with a massive public relations spending effort They have sponsored regressive laws and lawsuits that threaten freedom of speech. This journalist team bares the PR fluff by showing an exact parallel to the tactics used in Britain so successfully to defraud the populace of quality health protection in the food industry. Both industry and government were involved there and the same formula is at work here. Scientists were forbidden to do needed research and were gagged by politicial forces who cut off their grant money. The book includes comment on the mid 1997 USDA token guidelines and a scathing analysis of them by Consumers Union. Politics aside the book has a great deal of medical information as well. Spongiform encephalopathy is an always fatal degeneration of the brain whereby the tissue takes on a Swiss cheese consistency at the microscopic level as the brain looses function. The causative agent is like a virus in that it is not a living microbe. However, unlike a virus it has no nucleic acids, it is pure protein. This means it is almost impossible to destroy by traditional sterilization techniques like boiling, radiation, alcohol and autoclaving. The known cases in Britain came from farm/slaughterhouse workers and from meat eaters. The disease crosses the species barrier and is found in mice, cats, mink, squirrels as well as farm animals. There is some medical evidence that these diseases are also transmissible in milk, yet the CDC has not invoked mandatory reporting for the disease in the U.S. Vegeburgers and mock pork are here to stay. Unfortunately cow protein is present in hundreds of drugs and serums, not just in meat and milk, so as our coming epidemic rises insulin users and others will also be found to be at risk. Insightful quotes and snippets from the life of outspoken Nobel scientist Carleton Gajdusek add spice and human interest to this fine work. His smear tactics arrest on questionable charges by the FBI is described as well. A glossary and 14 pages of citations are included. An important book.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD!, 19 Jan 1999
By A Customer
I have been a big fan of PR Watch before I read the book. It is a fine companion book to John Robbins' Diet for a New America and Jeremy Rifkin's Beyond Beef.
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